How to assess a new development

Key questions, timelines and what to look for before you buy off-plan.

How to assess a new development

An off-plan purchase is a purchase of a promise. These are the questions that turn the promise into something you can check.

The developer and the licence

Who is building it, what have they delivered before, and is the building licence granted or applied for? Ask for the licence reference and the bank guarantee for staged payments.

The numbers as published

Price range, residence count, bedroom and size ranges, target completion, payment schedule. On this site each Development page shows these exactly as the developer disclosed them, with the source and its verification status footnoted.

The things a brochure will not say

Competing supply in the same area and price band, how long the last phase took to sell, what the community fees are likely to be, and what the resale market looks like for the previous project. We keep a “Things to weigh” section on every Development page for exactly this.

Keep reading

More from Mas Property

Source information
  1. 01

    Demo presentation imagery · Wikimedia Commons contributors

    Licensed photographs chosen to illustrate this demonstration website: the coast, its towns, and the fictional demo Developments. They are not photographs of any real Development or home listed here, and a real record’s own images are never taken from this set.

    • Puerto Banús at dusk — TimOve from Norway, CC BY 2.0 source
    • Puerto Banús and the Golden Mile from the air — Adam Cli, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
    • Bougainvillea on a Marbella facade — Jeff Hitchcock, CC BY 2.0 source